How Home Brewers Do It: Drinking The Best Beers In The World

Every year, brewers from all around descend upon Lake Casitas, CA for a big ole' bought of beer drinking. The SoCal Home Brewers Festival is coming up at the beginning of May. And oh how the beer will be flowing.

There are many amateur home brewers out there, and their beer can be good or bad. But there are some guys like in my club the Maltose Falcons (the oldest homebrew club in the USA, maybe the world) that brew some of the best beer you have ever had. This is not to say that commercial breweries lack the aptitude, equipment or skill to do the same. It is just that their interests are not aligned with making the very best beer in it's class. Their interests are aligned with making a profit and with making a "drinkable" beer that appeals to a large audience.

The home brewer can take the time to craft 5 or 30 gallons of some of the sweetest, most babied and carefully controlled and aged beer. These are luxuries of time and resources that most commercial brewers do not have when they must turn out batch after batch to pay the rent, bills, and keep the drinking public satisfied. Yes, there are limited runs from some breweries that are very good, that can match the quality of the beers I am referencing. These are few and far between, and always more plentiful than even the largest batch of a home brewer's private reserve.

So come to the Fest, drink some very good beer, and enjoy. Do not tell a brewer to pour you his "best beer", because thats the stuff that wont be wasted on just anyone. Prove you can appreciate something so fine, and it will gladly be shared with you without having to ask.

P.S. Join the Maltose Falcons, I am the currently Director of Activities, and we will have some great beers this year!